From a pedagogy for liberation to liberation from pedagogy

This essay examines Freire's approach to liberating people from oppression that represented an alternative to the armed struggle advocated by Marxist theorists. Drawing on Esteva's long years of working with indigenous cultures in southern Mexico, the authors point out that Freire failed to understand the connections between critical reflection as the only approach to knowledge and the promotion of a modern Western form of consciousness. Their essay also questions the role Freire assigns to educators as interventionists-particularly when they lack a deep knowledge of the culture where they are intervening. The authors contrast Freire's approach to empowerment with the more community-centered and intergenerational approaches found in indigenous cultures. Another strength of the chapter is the ability of the authors to place Freire's ideas in the context of the revolutionary thinking that was sweeping through Third World countries.